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Looking at Linux performance is a great idea since those CPUs probably will be utilized in Linux machines as well (lots of render farms run on Linux).

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I would assume render farms would rely much more on GPUs than on CPUs.

I think some do, some don't. I think some of the more complex models used in animations can't be easily parallelised.

See https://stackoverflow.com/questions/38029698/why-do-we-use-c... from a few years ago. The gist is CPUs are more versatile in the work they can do, support larger scenes, and the render doesn't have to be in real-time so it's not a make-or-break comparison as video games would be.

I'm not thinking on the specialized GPU parts for shading and mapping, but pure floating point hardware. With 3D you are doing lots and lots of floating point ops that should map easily to what GPUs do best.

OTOH, GPUs are still harder to program than CPUs and I can only imagine what the SFX crew would hear when they have to explain the movie can't be released in summer because the GPUs are too hard to write software for.

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